


Sauron's dynamic with Tar-Míriel

by Raaf



Series: Meta Analyses [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Analysis, Essays, F/M, Plot analysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 05:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26467783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raaf/pseuds/Raaf
Summary: This started out as just an analysis to hash out how Sauron interacted with Tar-Míriel when he was ingratiating himself with Númenor, but then I ended up making myself invested in shipping them together XD.Hey, I have to go where my canon analysis takes me ;)
Relationships: Tar-Míriel/Sauron | Mairon
Series: Meta Analyses [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1923727
Kudos: 13





	Sauron's dynamic with Tar-Míriel

I tried to establish what we know about Sauron and Míriel’s interactions in canon, but found absolutely nothing. Frustratingly, we know how Sauron dealt with Ar-Pharazôn and Amandil, and even how Annatar interacted with Galadriel, but nothing on how he treated Tar-Míriel. On the other hand, the omission itself is also weirdly telling.

According to Akallabêth, Sauron hated Amandil above all others in Númenor. Why single out Amandil, wouldn’t he be more angry at Pharazôn for taking him hostage? That might be because he was already getting his vengeance by messing with Pharazôn, but Amandil kept making a nuisance of himself. Or Elendil was just overestimating his father’s importance, but let's not go into the ‘unreliable narrator’ rabbit hole.

Why leave out Tar-Míriel, though? We don’t have a clear idea of what she was actually doing during the story (especially with the alternate versions for her), but all the reasons Sauron hates Amandil or Pharazôn should logically apply to her as well. If she was supporting Amandil then he should hate her as much, and if she was supporting Pharazôn then he should have been plotting vengeance against her as well. Sauron might have considered her not threatening enough to pay attention to. Except Amandil never actually does more than Míriel at stopping Sauron’s plans, and he withdrew to Rómenna while Míriel was at court the entire time. In light of that, it seems strange that Sauron would have considered Amandil to be a much bigger problem.

When the Great Armament is gone and Númenor is no longer a military threat to Sauron, the first thing he does is order Elendil killed, but apparently he leaves Tar-Míriel alone. Really? The reason the Black Númenóreans became a faction was because, even post Downfall, only the Faithful were willing to follow Elendil over Sauron. It makes no sense to prioritize Elendil over Míriel, Míriel at least has legitimacy on her side and is in much closer reach for Sauron.

Sauron targeting Míriel can’t just be assumed to have happened off-page, because this is during the time she is actually back on page and doing something by trying to ascend Meneltarma. It really should have come up in the story if she also had to run for her life like Elendil did, so it seems like she didn’t. Going after Elendil first and then after Tar-Míriel serves no purpose and is strategically stupid, since that just tips off Míriel so she can escape as well. Not going after Míriel at all is also stupid and pointless. Even if Sauron thinks of her as a complete non-threat, it would be far more convenient for him to install a puppet that will cooperate with him, than to keep the Faithful Míriel around.

Maybe it’s still a tougher sell to have his Númenórean minions kill their own Queen and then obey a puppet without a fig leaf of legitimacy. Except the entire point of Sauron’s scheme with the Downfall was to flip the power difference between Númenor and Mordor so that he can do what he likes without them being able to stop him. So why bother to still partially play along with their hierarchy?

I’m fairly sure Sauron not hating Míriel or trying to get rid of her are side-effects from how absent she is in the narrative, and not intentional implications; the Doylist explanation is pretty clearly that Christopher Tolkien just wasn’t very interested in Míriel’s role. If we want to put more focus on Míriel’s part though, then we still need to make a Watsonian explanation for why Sauron makes the weird strategic choice of keeping around the Faithful Míriel.

The face-value explanation is that Sauron didn’t have any particular ill-feeling toward Míriel and planned to keep her on as the new proxy ruler over Númenor. That doesn’t really feel like something I would have expected however, since that still leaves the question of _why _he would do that instead of installing a more cooperative proxy. All right then, I’m going with the shippy motivation XD. I’d apologize to Tolkien, but he put Morgoth→Lúthien in the text text so he can’t really complain :p.__

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Now the question is on how and why that would work?

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At the basic level, you have the pretty standard trope of the Villain fancying the Heroine. I don’t think I need to say anything more there, it’s common in narratives and an interesting element if done well.

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For the two of them in specific, any details on the characterization would have to depend on your headcanon version of Tar-Míriel. She, unfortunately, doesn’t have much of an established character for us to go on. Unless you draw on the other Akallabêth versions in Histories of Middle-earth, and those drafts are neither consistent nor comprehensive. Her only unambiguous character trait is being very gorgeous, sigh.

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Well, you can build a ship off that :p, Tolkien’s Morgoth→Lúthien subplot is entirely caused by Lúthien being Just That Gorgeous. Míriel isn’t said to be a Lúthien clone like Elrond’s daughter, but (according to "Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife") she is the most beautiful of all of Elros’ descendants, so she should still be in a fairly comparable league. Her not being a Lúthien clone would probably be a plus to Sauron anyway, considering his bad history with Lúthien ;).

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Side-note, but I find it very funny that Tar-Míriel, who lives generations after Aldarion and Erendis and has nothing to do with their story, still gets a reference: “[Ancalimë] the woman most beautiful, as old tales tell, that ever was born in the line of Elros, save Ar-Zimraphel, the last”. Míriel barely appears in her  _ own _ story, but it’s relevant to mention that Ancalimë is less good-looking than her, lol.

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Unlike with Morgoth, I don’t think  _ just  _ hotness would work on Sauron, however. Sauron’s reaction to seeing Lúthien, the most beautiful woman ever, is to think about the reward Morgoth is offering for her capture. Sauron doesn’t seem to have the slightest interest in Lúthien for himself, his only comments on Lúthien’s looks is when he is trolling Beren by going on about Morgoth’s lustful intentions for her.

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Which makes sense, desires of the flesh (lust in this case) aren’t urges for the Ainur. Judging by Morgoth’s lines in Lay of Leithian, he does get stuck with that issue, which I assume is just a special case because he is also stuck incarnated in a physical body. On the other hand, we get this intriguing info in Ósanwe-kenta:

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> if a “spirit” (that is, one of those not embodied by creation) uses a hröa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds it increasingly difficult to operate without the hröa … Thus eating and drinking are binding, but not the delight in beauty of sound or form. Most binding is begetting or conceiving.
> 
> ____
> 
> “We do not know the axani (laws, rules, as primarily proceeding from Eru) that were laid down upon the Valar with particular reference to their state, but it seems clear that there was no axan against these things.

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That is how Melian marrying an Elf and conceiving a Half-Maia kid with him is consistently part of the Legendarium, and is something she could just up and decide to do, without any special circumstances or permission involved. Any other Maia could theoretically also get involved with an Incarnate if they want to. Most of the Ainur are married couples, we can assume the rest also feel something equivalent to romantic feelings and Melian isn’t just an outlier.

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We don’t really see Sauron having interpersonal interactions much, but we do have some idea about it. We know (from Morgoth’s Ring) Sauron is different from the nihilist Morgoth in that people are specifically what he is interested in: “it was the creatures of earth, in their minds and wills, that he desired to dominate.” Sauron is beyond being able to make  _ healthy _ connections to other people, but I think he still has them. Mairon the Admirable is only admirable when other people admire him, and Sauron the Dark Lord is a Lord only when other people bow down before him.

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He wants his relationships to be entirely on his own terms, but it looks like he does want more than utilitarian interactions. He’s actually pretty chatty with the other characters during his few on page appearances XD. I don’t think he spent all those centuries with Celebrimbor and co without at least liking them as smithing buddies either, and “Annatar’s” complaint about Gil-galad and Elrond kicking him out does sound personally offended. He’s also fond of his pets: he has some of his wolves (notably Draugluin) sit by his throne and hand-feeds them, and he is wrathful when Lúthien and Huan kill Draugluin. And then there is his weird relationship to his “cat”, Shelob, where he amuses himself by sending her “dainties”.

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We don’t really need a grand romance. He probably wouldn’t bother  _ just _ for her being hot and politically useful, but as long as he also finds her likeable and/or interesting on a personal level (and it looks like he does, based on his willingness to keep her around?) then it looks like a perfectly good arrangement with some bonuses on his end.

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As for using the ship narratively, I’ve [ written before](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26465131) that Sauron actually works well as a foil character for Tar-Míriel. You could get a lot of mileage out of building on that for developing their relationship.

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It won’t end in Happily Ever After, but I think the ship works best as one-sided or tragic anyway. You can’t make it very  _ satisfying _ to have Míriel give up and join Sauron on Team Evil unless you maybe go full tragedy, and it would take a very skilled author to make it feel _convincing_ to have Sauron give up on his evil ways. Alternatively you could just have neither of them be actually invested in it, but, speaking for myself, that is not very interesting.

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**Author's Note:**

> Not that a redemption plotline couldn’t be successful (I think [In Full Measure](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947121/chapters/18169678) is the best example of someone pulling that off for the Silvergifting ship?), but I expect people would whine about it more if you tried that with a het ship ;p.
> 
> Luckily, I’m an amateur who’s writing purely for larks and don’t care that my fave is "problematic", so my in next fic after Course Correction I will inflict an attempt at it on you all anyway ;). I mean, I do need to row myself out of rare-pair hell with them now XD.


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